Pre-school/Nursery

Piglets – Safe, settled and happy

  • For many parents coming to Sunbeams when your child has turned two is the very first experience of a childcare setting both you and your little one will have had.  Therefore we try to make this a happy moment and stress free. Our experienced staff make it their priority to ensure a positive start to nursery life from the moment you first come to visit the setting and make the decision to enrol your child at Sunbeams. We will endeavour to make you welcome, reassured and listened to.

Our staff will support you on your first day and be guided by what suits you and your child best, to ensure a smooth transition. We have a tried and tested ‘settling in’ process based on playing and exploring, are sensitive to the needs of the child and want to make their first experience of nursery a positive and happy one.  We will, together with you, tailor any additional settling in plan that works best for everyone.

Room to Grow –

  • Our Piglets room is a safe, spacious and enticing room which offers activities, experiences and time for your child to explore and discover. We offer countless opportunities for the children to develop their skills and discover new ones.  We especially enjoy sharing our messy play ideas, construction and role play area, arts and crafts and our quiet book corner.

Developing, Exploring & Flourishing –

  • When joining our Piglets room the main emphasis is on settling the new little ones in to nursery life and supporting those who have never been separated from their parents before. Once happy and feeling secure, the Piglets room is a place where the children can grow, develop and learn the skills that will be the foundation for all their future learning.

We focus on the 3 Prime areas of learning – Personal, Social and Emotional development, Communication and Language, and Physical development. These are the building blocks for life and it enables children to learn how to share, understand boundaries, how to make friendships, build their confidence and self-esteem and especially develop their independence.

Being at our setting gives your child the opportunity to find their voice and express their needs, wants and feelings as well as learning how to cope with other children’s unique characteristics and personalities.

Our fantastic outside area is always available to them, whatever the weather, and we have found this is the best environment to develop those first words and flourishing communication skills. This is also the case for children whose first language is not English.

Our highly qualified and nurturing staff pride themselves in ensuring the children are happy and cared for in an environment that enables learning through play. They can explore, experience and have the room and space to become inquisitive learners.

Sharing With Parents –

  • We pride ourselves on having very good relationships with parents, inviting you into the setting, taking part in our termly Parent Forums and being able to discuss together any issues or concerns that there may be. We are here to listen to you, support you and be a shoulder to cry if the occasion arises.

We keep you up to date with your child’s learning and development through our app based tool, Evidence 4 Learning. We use iPads to document your child’s progress with photos and annotation.   This is then uploaded using the Teacher Cloud, which we update every half term for you to securely download or print. It also gives you the opportunity to comment on your child’s achievements and let us know what you are doing at home. It is always lovely to hear what the children get up to when they are not with us!

Twice a year we hold a parents evening, inviting you into the setting to talk about your child’s development; but you can ask at any time to see their record in the nursery.

We also update the information on the boards outside each classroom door to illustrate what activities the children have been doing that day, this gives you the chance to initiate a conversation with your child rather than just asking, “What have you done today?”

 

Tiggers –

A Learning Space –

  • Following on from our Piglets room, children move into the Tiggers room where we offer dedicated spaces for co-operative and imaginative play, mark-making, construction, creative areas including roleplay, explorative messy play, small world, mathematical and literacy areas, as well as free-flow access to our wonderful outdoor studio and garden, where all areas of the curriculum are catered for.

Joining our Tiggers room may also be the first time some children have been separated from their main carer, and we wish to try and make it as easy as possible for both adults and children. Going to school can be an enormous change for a child and if they have been able to attend our pre-school, which gives good quality care as well as education, the transition to school will be that much easier.

We have a tried and tested ‘settling in’ process, which can be tailored to suit your child’s individual needs if necessary. We want your child’s first experience of Sunbeams to be positive and fun.

Fascinated Learners –

  • All children are fascinated by the world around them and soak up learning at an extraordinary rate.  To be able to harness this enjoyment and facilitate it we incorporate ‘child led’ learning where we plan activities around these fascinations, therefore optimising their greatest learning opportunities.  This simply means that we recognise children will learn best when they are interested in the subject.  We listen and observe the children and then input the appropriate learning and knowledge into the things that interest them the most.

We have discovered that using the children’s fascinations as a basis for our planning of activities has meant that topics can go on for much longer and this encourages more children to be involved.  It truly is wonderful to see.

EYFS – Early Years Foundation Stage

  • As we are an Ofsted registered setting, we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. This enables us to guide children to achieve their full potential and gain a zest for learning which will continue with them throughout their school years.

Within the Every Child Matters outcomes we will endeavour to encourage children to

  • Be healthy
  • Be safe
  • Enjoy and achieve
  • Make a positive contribution
  • Achieve Economic Well-being

The EYFS lays out play based learning and care within a framework of four themes – A Unique Child, Positive Relationships, Enabling Environments and Learning and Development. The ways in which children engage with their environment are called the characteristics of learning and there are prime and specific areas of learning which we use together to help us plan, assess and observe children’s development and progress.

Alongside promoting learning achievements, we also focus on School Readiness where we prepare your child for their next journey in to Reception class at school. There are 7 skills that will support children at school, co-operating, listening and understanding, sharing, dealing independently with care needs, speaking clearly in sentences, having co-ordination and showing curiosity and enthusiasm. These are all qualities that we embed in our teaching on a daily basis and can see the positive effect it has on the children in our care.

At Sunbeams we tailor each and every child’s learning to their individual needs and abilities, ensuring they are pushed when needed and gain extra support when struggling. We start with the building blocks of learning and give them the best start in their learning to continue into formal education with good self-esteem, confidence and a curiosity to want to learn more.

Sharing With Parents –

  • We pride ourselves on having very good relationships with parents, inviting you into the setting, taking part in our termly Parent Forums and being able to discuss together any issues or concerns that there may be. We are here to listen to you, support you and be a source of advice should you feel you need it.

We keep you up to date with your child’s learning and development through our app based tool, Evidence 4 Learning. We use iPads to document your child’s progress with photos and annotation.   This is then uploaded using the Teacher Cloud, which we update every half term for you to securely download or print. It also gives you the opportunity to comment on your child’s achievements and let us know what you are doing at home. It is always lovely to hear what the children get up to when they are not with us!

Twice a year we hold a parents evening, inviting you into the setting to talk about your child’s development.

We also update the information on the boards outside each classrooms door to illustrate the what activities the children have been doing that day, this gives you the chance to initiate a conversation with your child rather than just asking, “What have you done today?”